My Heart in Ashes
by Captain Silence
Summary: Davos receives a crudely written letter bearing news he never excepted to hear. (Spoilers for S5E9; "Dance with Dragons")


**A/N: Okay. First off. MY HEART FREAKING HURTS FROM THAT EPISODE. Second off: I'm really pissed about that thing that happened. Third off. I don't ever write Davos so I apologize if this is OOC, I just needed to write this because I had the feels and I needed everyone else to have the feels too. Fourth off: I am giving away free hugs of consolation after this episode.**

 **Also. I know this is short. I wanted it to be. Plus the fact that I should be sleeping because I have finals tomorrow.**

 **I'm going to say this once. If you have not seen episode 9 of season 5 of Game of Thrones then PLEASE x out of this fic. It is not for you because of the spoilers.**

 **These characters do not belong to me. If they did this thing would not have happened.**

 **Also. Can someone kill Stannis any time soon? Just... please? It'd make me real happy. Like right now? Please...?**

* * *

 _ **My Heart in Ashes**_

The raven came at sun high. It came with a note; just a scribbled mess of words that Davos could hardly understand. He didn't need to understand much. Just two words. _Shireen. Dead._ His hands had started shaking and he'd stumbled away from the table in shock, the paper lying there, cold and unforgiving.

First came the denial. She wasn't dead. She couldn't be. Stannis wouldn't do that to his daughter. She was fine. It was a prank. A sick, rotten trick. Though the cold in his veins and the crude ink on the page suggested otherwise. He choked then, collapsing into the chair, struggling to regain composure.

 _She couldn't be dead._

Then came the guilt. It tackled him to the floor and left him breathless. It brought a stinging to his eyes and a lump to his throat. It brought her name to his lips in broken gasps. Brought out the words "forgive me, princess." They spilled forth from his fumbling lips like a brook over pebbles. Senseless words bubbled up from his throat, spewing from his mouth like blood from an open wound. Each word became more and more incoherent as the lump in his throat grew. Though one thought was consistent through it all:

 _I should have saved her._

Next, came the tears. They broke the dam and rushed down his face, creating tracks down his weathered face. They caught in his beard, wet his lips and blurred his vision. His mighty shoulders shook with the force of his sobs. His breath caught and he struggled to rein in his emotions. Though nothing could stop Davos Seaworth from crying like a newborn babe. Because Shireen Baratheon was dead. And he hadn't done one bloody damn thing to stop it.

Then, came the anger. It's red hot viper burrowed into his veins and set his blood aflame. It became the reason behind the waterfall of tears that left his eyes. His hands clenched to fists at his sides and every inch of him yearned to break something. So he did. He grabbed the mug from the table and hurled it across the room. It shattered on impact but it didn't make him feel the least bit better. He grabbed another and it met the same fate, and yet the pain continued to gnaw at his being. _Why?!_ He cursed himself to every one of the Seven Hells, _why did I not try to reason with him?! Why!?_

A little voice in his brain tried to reason with him. It said that he could not have known. It said that he couldn't have guessed that Stannis was this cruel a man. It tried to calm the emotions the Onion Knight was feeling, but he was a tsunami and he could not be calmed. His breath was forever caught, his eyes were forever wet and his heart was forever broken.

He had loved that little girl like she was his own. And she was gone. She'd just slipped through his fingers, sand on a breeze. He'd failed her too. Just like he'd failed Matthos.

 _I'm sorry, princess._

The thought lingered in his mind as the knight bowed his head over the table. The third mug that he'd wanted to throw clattered to the floor and he broke with it. Each tiny piece of his heart shattered, flinging off into every direction on the floor. And when someone finally rushed into the room and demanded what was going on, all Davos could do was push the note off the table, dead eyes watching it sway until it hit the ground and a man of the Night's Watch gathered it up, reading it over and then vacating the room.

Jon entered some time later. He said inspiring words, at least Davos thought he did. All he heard was the mumble of the younger man's words. Davos thought he bit out a few retorts in Jon's direction, though he couldn't be sure. He could be sure of only one thing. The fact that he wanted to be the one that strangled the life out of Stannis Baratheon and that red bitch, Melisandre.

 _For her._

And then he'd find another tutor. He didn't want to. But it was what _she_ would have wanted. He'd learn to read fully.

 _For Shireen._


End file.
